Going Social Is Not a Business Model

Social Media Networks | BCBusiness

Social media – including the latest, Google+ – are business tools, not businesses in themselves. So why are we talking about them so much?

I go away for a few days and suddenly I have a couple of dozen invites to be on Google+. I am also facing a mountain of blogs dissecting the – ahem – pluses and minuses of the latest social network.

There are some things to like about Google’s answer to Facebook. The circles of connections is a great idea, in that you can sort who’s most important to you and who isn’t. This is a huge problem with networks like Twitter and Facebook that just lump everyone together.

The video chat feature also holds promise for conferencing with small groups, something we all need more and more in today’s time-starved world.

But, other than those two features, it’s really just another social network, and I think there are too many already.

Recently I saw a graphic of all the social networks available to us (hundreds of them!). Talk about overkill. Today, most people are being overwhelmed by social media involvement and are trying to instill some discipline into their social media use.

Also, is all this social media really producing ROI?

It’s probably the biggest question business operators ask: Will I get a return for the time and cost expended?

I believe it does produce ROI, but not in the traditional way we think about it. Social media are great branding and marketing tools. They’re excellent customer support tools, which probably can be quantified in some sort of ROI, although I haven’t seen it yet. And certainly they’re good for gathering business intelligence – a continuing window to the world around you.

While all of these have operational value, they don’t generally produce direct income. One could argue that they can actually reduce it if you get too caught up in the social part to the detriment of your other and more pressing business tasks.

I recognize that sometimes we can get too narrow and see value only as income instead of the corollary outgo. So, operational value has a kind of ROI built in. But it’s damned hard to measure.

And of course I’m painting with a large brush here. Obviously there will be individual cases where social media form a true business model.

I just returned from a visit to an operation in San Francisco that is earning millions by providing a platform for social media marketing. But it was one of the first in, and so dominates the market. Generally social media as a business model is a rarity and is confined to the marketing sphere.

Most people operate other, more traditional, businesses that produce products or services. They think in terms of expenses and income – ROI, in other words.

For all of these, I say social media should form part of your business toolbox, not your business itself. No matter what business you are in, you have to learn to use tools appropriately.